Well and Wise: A Positive Mental Attitude is Critical for Optimal Health

Keith J. Karren, PhD Dept. of Health Science

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD.

Positive emotion has a profound purpose far beyond the delightful way it makes us feel. Positive emotions have a grand purpose in evolution. They broaden our abiding intellectual, physical, and social-resources, building up reserves we can draw upon when a threat or opportunity presents itself.

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD. When we are in a positive mood, people like us better, and friendship, love, and coalitions are more likely to cement. In contrast to the constrictions of negative emotion, our mental set is expansive, tolerant, and creative. We are open to new ideas and new experience.

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD.

Health and longevity are good indicators of physical reserve, and there is direct evidence that positive emotion predicts health and longevity. In the largest study to date, 2,282 Mexican-Americans from the southwest United Stats aged sixty-five or older were given a battery of demographic and emotional tests, then tracked for two years. Positive emotion strongly predicted who lived and who died, as well as disability.

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD.

After controlling for age, income, education, weight, smoking, drinking, and disease, the researchers found that happy people were half as likely to die, and half as likely to become disabled. Positive emotion also protects people against the ravages of aging. You will recall that beginning nuns who wrote happy autobiographies when in their twenties lived longer and healthier lives than novices whose autobiographies were devoid of positive emotion, and also that optimists in the Mayo Clinic study lived significantly longer than pessimists.

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD. You will recall that beginning nuns who wrote happy autobiographies when in their twenties lived longer and healthier lives than novices whose autobiographies were devoid of positive emotion, and also that optimists in the Mayo Clinic study lived significantly longer than pessimists.

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD.

Happy people, furthermore have better health habits, lower blood pressure, and feistier immune systems than less happy people. When you combine all this with Aspinwalls findings that happy people seek out and absorb more health risk information, it adds up to an unambiguous picture of happiness as a prolonger of life and improver of health.

Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD.

Not only do happy people endure pain better and take more health and safety precautions when threatened but positive emotions undo negative emotions. There are many studies that correlate positivity with later health, longevity, sociability and success the balance of the evidence suggests that in some situations negative thinking leads to more accuracy. Where accuracy is tied to potentially catastrophic outcomes (for example, when an airplane pilot is deciding whether to de-ice the wings of her airplane) we should all be pessimists.

Ideas from Molecules of Emotion - Candice D. Pert, Ph.D

The body and mind are not separate but really one system coordinated by the molecules of emotion. For most of us, the very words healthy lifestyle conjure up images of low-fat meals, daily exercise regimens, and the elimination fo alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs. While these are all good, health-enhancing strategies and Ill have something to say about them from the point of view of the peptidergic network

Ideas from Molecules of Emotion - Candice D. Pert, Ph.D

whats missing for most of us is any focus on ongoing, daily emotional self-care. We tend to deal with the physical aspects of keeping ourselves health and ignore the emotional dimension our thoughts and feelings, even our spirits, our souls. Yet, in light of the new knowledge about emotions and the psychosomatic network, its obvious that they, too, are a part of our responsibility to manage our own health.

Ideas from Molecules of Emotion - Candice D. Pert, Ph.D

The tendency to ignore our emotions is oldthink, a remnant of the still-reigning paradigm that keeps us focused on the material level of health, the physicality of it. But the emotions are a key element in selfcare because they allow us to enter into the bodyminds conversation. By getting in touch with our emotions, both by listening to them and by directing them through the psychosomatic network, we can gain access to the healing wisdom that is everyones natural biological right.

Ideas from Molecules of Emotion - Candice D. Pert, Ph.D

For me, the key concept is that the emotions exist in the body as informational chemicals, the neuropeptides and receptors, and they also exist in another realm, the one we experience as feeling, inspiration, love beyond the physical. The emotions move back and forth, flowing freely between both places and in that sense, they connect the physical and nonphysical.

Ideas from Molecules of Emotion - Candice D. Pert, Ph.D

Perhaps this is the same thing that Eastern healers call the subtle energy, or prana the circulation of emotional and spiritual information throughout the bodymind. We know that the way health occurs in the physical body has to do with the flow of the biochemicals of emotion. My work has taught me that there is a physical reality to the emotions.

THE POWER OF BELIEF

How do our thoughts and beliefs affect our health? Are our bodies and minds distinct from each other or do they function together as parts of an interconnected system? There is a biomolecular basis for our beliefs and scientific evidence of the power of our minds and our beliefs to affect our health and well-being.

Because beliefs and emotions are largely ephemeral and imperceptible, Western medicine has largely assumed that their effects are nor physical or measurable. Western medical science, in its passion to reserve life, has neglected the motivations that drive us, the meaning of life that makes people thirst for health and longevity.

Every day, whether we know it or not, we alter our brain chemistry. We do this through what we eat, what we do, and what we think. These changes in brain chemistry cause transformations in mood and intellectual performance that range from the subtle to the profound. As science has proven, if we change the condition of the brains neurons and chemistry, our thoughts and emotions change. The reverse is also true: change our thoughts and emotions, and the chemicals within our brains are also changed.

Thoughts and ideas that are maintained consistently over time cause changes in brain chemistry and function. We are shaped by what we think especially if we think those thoughts consistently over a long enough period of time.

One of the secrets to making long-term changes in brain chemistry is through consistent types of thinking optimism, for example, or faith. Certain daily practices such as meditation, prayer and relaxation exercises, can foster these long-term, positive changes in biochemistry. In The Three Pound Universe, by Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, they say that thoughts, call the plays, exerting downward control over the march of nerve-impulse traffic.

What is Health?
The root meaning of health is wholeness. The word health comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root that gives us whole, hale, and holy. Western medical doctors have narrowed their view of health and pay most attention to the physical body and the material aspects of illness. Many doctors would define health as the absence of disease

With the emergence of Complementary and Alternative medicine (which I prefer to refer to as Integrative Medicine), spiritual and religious influences upon health have reemerged as important factors for scientific inquiry. I say re-emerged because throughout history, healers were often the tribal or community leaders that were religious figures. Health is now being embraced as a dynamic and harmonious equilibrium of all the elements and forces making up and surrounding a human being.

The Mind is a Powerful Determinant of our Health

In many ways this new view is harder since it is not clearly measurable. But we can no longer ignore the huge body of research that is showing us a new way of understanding our health

A new branch of medical research began in the 1970s which began the scientific study of how the mind and emotions (psyche), the brain and nervous system (neuro) and the bodys cellular defenses abnormal invaders (immune system) interact in health and disease. This branch of medical research is known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). This proves to us what many have intuitively known.

Psychoneuroimmunology shows us that there is a biochemical basis to our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, self image and expectations which impacts, physically every cell in our body.

TOP TEN TIPS FOR MIND/BODY HEALTH

1. Your body is your subconscious mind. 2. Your thoughts, beliefs and emotions have biochemical effects in your body. 3. Optimists live longer 4. social connections lower your risk of dying at any age.

5. Humility is linked to lower heart disease risk and better relationships 6. Laughter is good medicine 7. How well you THINK you are is a strong predictor of your disease risk 8. Music has powerful healing properties 9. Group therapy can increase life expectancy in patients with severe illness 10. Your mind is located in every cell of your body be careful, your body is listening!

Supportive of Health and Well-Being

Balanced Diet Daily and weekly exercise Time for fun, play and laughter Music, sonics, and chanting Love, touch and support systems Engaged in interests, hobbies, and creative purpose Nature, beauty, and healing environments The presence of faith and belief in the supernatural

Non-Supportive of Health and Well-Being

Unbalanced diet Lack of exercise Loss of humor and lack of fun Lack of music, sonics and chanting Lack of love, touch and support systems Lack of interests, hobbies, and creative purpose Lack of nature, beauty and healing environments Lack of faith and belief in the supernatural

ATTITUDE
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life in 10% what happens to me & 90% how I react to it. So it is with you, we are in charge of our attitudes.

The Healing Power of Optimism

Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life. -Grenville Kleiser

What is Optimism?
Optimism is an inclination to anticipate the best possible outcome. Ornstein & Sobel:
Optimism is the tendency to seek out, remember, and expect pleasurable experiences. It is an active priority of the person, not merely a reflex that prompts us to look on the sunny side.

Optimists live longer and they probably enjoy better health along the way as well.

How Optimism Influences Health

Norman Cousins:
Diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. Fought back, using a number of factors (such as nutrition, optimism, and laughter) to overcome his disease Laughter played a part, of course, but laughter was a metaphor for the full range of positive emotionshope, faith, love, determination, confidenceall the things that are part of the ability of the human mind to get the most out of whatever is possible.

How Optimism Influences Health

Evidence gives increasing credibility to the idea that optimism and positive emotions promote health. Lazarus:
positive denial helps up keep hopes up, sustains morale, improves health, and reduces anxiety.

A positive attitude and belief in the bodys own healing abilities can certainly supplement medical treatment, but should never replace it.

How Optimism Influences Health

Cousins & Siegel:
The best possible outcome results when optimism and positive thinking work hand-inhand with the medical treatment offered by competent physicians.

Petersen and Vaillant

Harvard graduates, men who were the most optimistic in their original writings had the best health forty years later.

How Optimism Influences Health

Peterson
pessimistic students were ill twice as many days and had four times as any doctor visits over the course of a year compared with optimistic students. This suggests that how we view things may directly affect our immune system.

Optimists and Longevity

Physiological reason why optimists live longer lies in a complex set of messages that the mind sends to the body. Optimists give consistent live messages to the body and live longer. People with a cheerful outlook on life generally get to enjoy life longer.

Optimists and Longevity

How you perceive your health to be also seems to have a significant bearing on how long you will live. Optimism can be a potent determinant in how healthy we are and how long we live.

Ways to Boost your Optimism

Realize you may need to make a lifestyle change Start small by choosing one area of your life Take a good, hard, critical look at your beliefs about yourself Set goals that are small enough to achieve quickly Seek out optimistic people Play at being optimistic

Positive psychology, a field whose goal is to change the focus from what causes a troubled mind to what causes a happy one, contends that optimists are better off that pessimists. In heart disease, in particular, research has shown that optimism has been associated with a lowered risk of dying. In one study, patients who described themselves as highly optimistic had lower risks of all-cause death and lower rates of cardiovascular death than those with high levels of pessimism. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health showed that optimism lowers the risk of heart disease in older men and that pessimism and hopelessness increase it. And University of Pittsburgh researchers have reported that optimistic women demonstrate less thickening of the carotid artery walls. Not that being positive is simple or easy it requires considerable effort. One way to cultivate it is by practicing gratitude.

Those who are grateful for their blessings, and give thanks for their good fortune rater than dwelling on their misfortunes, are generally healthier and happier. Being grateful has helped create their happiness. Gratefulness has long been heralded as a virtue essential for health and well-being. Research now suggests that it also allows people to deal better with stress, causing them to be more optimistic, which seems to boost immune function.

Studies have shown that those who fail to forgive wrongs committed to them have more stressrelated disorders and worse rates of cardiovascular disease than the population as a whole. Those who received forgiveness training showed improved blood flow to their heart muscle. Forgiveness seems to reduce bitterness, anger, hatred, and fear. Many of my depressed patients have been gnawing on the bones of past grievances for years. Marianne Williamson says: We are not held back by the love we didnt receive in the past, but by the love were not extending in the present. Forgiveness, optimism, gratitude are increasingly subjects for serious scientific investigation, as much a part of the heart disease equation as blood cholesterol levels.

The heart has a mind that some might call the spirit, the higher self, intuition or the small voice within. How many times have you said to yourself if only I had listened to my heart. By not listening, we often pay a price in time and energy in cleaning up the mess afterward. This according to Rolin McCraty, who studies the physiological mechanisms by which the heart communicates with the brain. Over the years, HeartMath has conducted research validating the power of the heart in relieving stress and promoting health. Theyve formulated practical interventions that incorporate the understanding that the heart profoundly affects our perceptions, awareness, and intelligence.

Aaron Antonovsky writes Weve come to understand health not as the absence of disease but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence their sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment. A key finding of HeartMath research is that as people learn to sustain heart-focused positive states of feeling, the brain is brought into entrainment with the heart.

EFFECTIVE EDUCATION

The Power of Positive Thinking

Key Point
You are what you think. You feel what you want.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Why Think Positively? All of our feelings, beliefs and knowledge are based on our internal thought, both conscious and subconscious. We are in control, whether we know it or not. We can be positive or negative, enthusiastic or dull, active or passive. The biggest difference between people is their attitudes. For some, learning is enjoyable and exciting. For others, learning is a drudgery. For many, learning is just okay, something required on the road to a job.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Why Think Positively?
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln Our present attitudes are habits, built from the feedback of parents, friends, society and self, that form our self-image and our world image. These attitudes are maintained by the inner conversations we constantly have with ourselves, both consciously and subconsciously. The first step in changing our attitudes is to change our inner conversations.

The Power of Positive Thinking What Should We Be Saying?

One approach is called the three Cs: Commitment Control Challenge

The Power of Positive Thinking

Commitment Make a positive commitment to yourself, to learning, work, family, friends, nature, and other worthwhile causes. Praise yourself and others. Dream of success. Be enthusiastic.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Control Keep your mind focused on important things. Set goals and priorities for what you think and do. Visualize to practice your actions. Develop a strategy for dealing with problems. Learn to relax. Enjoy successes. Be honest with yourself.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Challenge Be courageous. Change and improve each day. Do your best and dont look back. See learning and change as opportunities. Try new tings. Consider several options. Meet new people. Ask lots of questions. Keep track of your mental and physical health. Be optimistic.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Commitment, Control, and Challenge
Studies show that people with these characteristics are winners in good times and survivors in hard times. Research shows that, people who begin consciously to modify their inner conversations and assumptions report an almost immediate improvement in their performance. Their energy increases and things seem to go better C,C, & C help build self-esteem and promote positive thinking.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Suggestions for Building Positive Attitudes
In every class, look for positive people to associate with. In every lecture, look for one more interesting idea. In every chapter, find one more concept important to you. With every friend, explain a new idea youve just learned. With every teacher, ask a question. With yourself, keep a list of your goals, positive thoughts and actions. Remember, you are what you think, you feel what you want.

Benefits: Be an optimist
Improve your mood, self-esteem, and overall happiness Decrease depression, anxiety, and hostility Lessen pain and other bodily symptoms Speed recovery from surgery Enhance your immune function Possibly extend your life

 We are constantly talking to ourselves. This self-talk is how we explain the events of our lives to ourselves. And it is the way we interpret these external events in our minds that determines how we feel, and determines what actions we decide to take.

 You become a prisoner of your own beliefs. But the walls of our prison are made of thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. Selftalk is not something fixed in our biology, and our feelings are no completely out of our control. New, healthier thoughts can be cultivated.

Try Rose Colored Glasses

Sometimes you just need to look reality in the eye and deny it.
Garrison Keillor

Healthy thinkers see the world through rose-colored lenses. They distort their reality in a positive direction, and most of the time their rosy illusions benefit them. Healthy thinking is not necessarily more realistic; its just healthier.

What makes an optimist?

Be selective, remember mainly the positive events in the past. Focus on the present. See the future in terms of what can be done instead of what cant happen See threats as challenges problems can be solved Believe the world is coherent, and their actions make a significant difference.

Optimist and Pessimist Self Talk

Optimists see setbacks as temporary:
My daughter and I fought because she was in a bad mood . I was exhausted at the time.

Pessimists see setbacks as permanent:

My daughter and I never get along no matter what I do. Things never work out for me.

Optimists see failure or adversity as specific to the immediate problem:

Pessimists generalize the problem to their whole life:

Optimists explain bad events in terms of external causes:

I was nervous about giving the speech because the audience was so large Im not a very good skier

I was nervous about giving the speech because I always mess it up Im not at all athletic

Pessimists explain bad events by blaming themselves:

I caused a fender bender because Im a lousy driver Im stupid

I caused a fender bender because traffic distracted me I never got a good education

Optimist and Pessimist Self Talk

Optimists see good events as permanent:
Im always lucky! :D Im really skilled; things go easy for me.

Pessimists dismiss good events as temporary:

Optimists generalize good outcomes to their whole life:

I got the job promotion my whole life is working well. Im smart I know how to take advantage of luck My ability made a big difference.

Im just lucky today it wont last. Things never work out for me.

Pessimists limit good outcomes to a specific area:

It went well at the office, but its still a mess at home Im good at math

Optimists attribute good events to themselves:

Pessimists attribute good events to external causes:

I just got lucky Other people made it work

What the Research Shows

Confidence Counts
Changing the way you think is one of the best things you can do to enhance health. Research suggests that positive thinkingoptimism, confidence, and a sense of control-has very positive health benefits. It can affect your immune system, your susceptibility to disease, and perhaps even your life span. Here are some studies that demonstrate the power optimistic thinking:

Optimism and Immunity

In one study, researchers measured chemical substances in saliva that protect us from infections like colds. Immunity was higher on days when people felt positive about their lives than on days when they felt down.

Optimism and Immunity

Blood samples were taken from both optimistic and negative people. The optimists had a higher ratio of disease-fighting helper immune cells to suppressor immune cells than the pessimists.

Optimism and Cancer

Mice and rats were implanted with tumors in several studies, and given electric shocks. The ones who fought the tumors more successfully were those who could turn off the shock by pressing a bar. This gave them some control over a stressful situation.

Optimism and Cancer

Confidence and optimism also appear to help those facing lifethreatening diseases. Women who had a second occurrence of breast cancer survived longer if they felt joy in living, and talked to themselves optimistically.

Optimism and Cancer

There is evidence that people can learn to think more positively, and so improve their physical health. For example, one group of patients with cancer were taught more constructive thinking habits. They also received relaxation training. These patients natural killer cells showed much higher activity than patients who received similar medical treatment, but no counseling.

Attitude Affects Longevity

In one study, seniors who believed they were in poor health were nearly three times more likely to die within seven years than those who rated their health as excellent. The self-ratings more accurately predicted who would die than the doctors objective reports.

Attitude Affects Longevity

People who thought they were in poor health (despite the fact that their doctors had given them a clean bill of health) had a slightly greater risk of dying sooner than health optimists. Those who saw themselves as well (even though doctors reports suggested that they had poor health) lived slightly longer.

Attitude Affects Longevity

Even a sense of control over minor daily events can improve health. Nursing home residents who were given a choice of what to have for breakfast or what night to see a movie were happier and more active. After 18 months, they had half the death rate of those not offered as much control.

Beliefs Become Biology

Because optimists are more active than pessimists, they are more likely to do something for their health (go to the doctor, change their diet, or exercise). Optimists may also be more active than other people in seeking out supportanother factor thats been shown to promote health.

Beliefs Become Biology

We dont yet understand exactly how optimistic thinking translates into better health. but we do know that thought determine moods, and moods reflect changes in both hormonal activity and immune function. however it works, the evidence clearly shows that its worthwhile to learn to think as optimistically as possible.

How to Think in a Healthier Way

Inaccurate thoughts can be challenged and changed. Track your Thoughts
Recognizing unhelpful negative thoughts is the first step to stopping them.

Question Pessimistic Self-Talk

Have I really identified whats bothering me?

How to Think in a Healthier Way

Am I exaggerating the situation? Am I over-generalizing? Am I over-worrying? Am I assuming the worst? Am I making an unrealistic or unfair comparison? Do I have the evidence for my conclusion? Am I taking it too personally? Am I discounting the positive?

Healthy Negative Feelings

Life is not only about thinking positive, happy thoughts. Emotions, both positive and negative, give texture and meaning to life. There are times when negative feelings are healthy and appropriate. Am I expecting perfection?

Uncover Your Core Beliefs

You can learn a lot by identifying the deeper beliefs that give rise to your negative self-talk.

The Limits of Optimism

Sometimes biological factors dominate, and no amount of positive thinking will reverse them. Still, optimistic thinking can help you to prevent some illnesses, and cope better with others.

The Limits of Optimism

Healthy thinking may not prolong your survival, but it can help you maximize your health and functioning in the meantime. You might find yourself up against an entirely unreasonable belief that nothing short of perfection is acceptable.

The Limits of Optimism

Remember that mistakes arent failures. Theyre good to learn from. Mistakes give you the chance to rehearse other ways of handling things. This is great practice for future crisis.

How to Think in a Healthier Way

Challenge Your Shoulds
Underlying beliefs often involve the word should.

Get a Sense of Control

It refers to the belief that you can always have some impact on your situation, and some degree of choice.

How to Think in a Healthier Way

Act as if...
By acting as if something good were true, you can generate positive feelings and thoughts.

Be mindful
Set aside some time to simply observe your thoughts, without trying to change them.

Well and Wise A Positive Mental Attitude Is Critical For Optimal Health Keith J. Karren, PhD Dept. of Health Science